Adventures in the Homeland!

Hello all!

Wow...I have not been updating this thing. So much has happened in the past week it's been hard to find time to even sleep!

Well, I guess we should start with midterms. Bleh. Studying for them sucked. Taking tests for 5 hours reminded me of the SAT. But enough of that...

Moving on to the more interesting news...this past weekend, eight other girls and I went to Dublin, Ireland, aka the land where pale people like myself are welcomed with open arms! After a long trip there (two train rides and a very uncomfortable plane ride), we got to Dublin at about 11:00 on Thursday night. We took a cab from the airport with the most stereotypical Irish cab driver! His name was Angus, was wearing a wool sweater, and asked us where our "lovely accents" were from! He was so sweet...so different from cab drivers you find in the States, or even in Italy for that matter. He gave us a lot of advice on things to do, most of which we did. He took us to our hostel, which was literally in between the River Liffey that runs through the center of the city and Temple Bar, which is the street where all the pubs are. We really couldn't have picked a better place to be!

The next morning, we decided to take a Hop On-Hop Off bus (because of Angus' advice!) that went to all the major sites of the city. It went by the Dublin Castle (pretty self-explanatory), Christ Church Cathedral, which in addition to being a beautiful church was also a site for a Viking settlement, St. Patrick's Cathedral (where Jonathan Swift is buried and where he wrote a lot of his famous works, like "A Modest Proposal"), and a bunch of other places. We decided to get off at the Guinness Storehouse (again, thanks Angus!), which was pretty awesome. It was eight floors all devoted to telling you how they choose the perfect combination of hops, barley, yeast, and all the other stuff that goes in beer (I guess it's a good thing that I don't know that...haha!). The top floor had 360 degree windows that gave you a bird's eye view of Dublin - it was absolutely amazing! After picking up some souvenirs for Athens friends, we decided to move on.

By this point, we were all pretty tired, so after taking a looooong nap we decided to find a pub somewhere to have dinner. Wanting to experience some true Irish food, we found a place that served fish and chips (aka fish and french fries). Apparently Irish people really like vinegar and put it on everything, which was fine with me. Literally every single sauce had some kind of vinegar in it. But it was awesome!

Later that night, we decided we wanted to take advantage of our amazing location near Temple Bar and wanted to find a place that played real Irish music. Angus had pointed out a place near our hostel, so we decided to go there. The name of it was...get ready...Oliver St. John Gogarty's. It doesn't get more Irish than that. The first floor was just your basic bar, but then each floor beyond that was a little different. The floor above that was more of a restaurant-quiet drinking type of place, and the top floor was devoted to live Irish music and dancing! The first night, we saw riverdancing and heard a band playing traditional Irish music (including the Galway Girl song Gerard Butler sings to Hilary Swank in "P.S. I Love You"...anyone?). It was so amazing! We could tell that a lot of locals went there, which basically proved that it was awesome. All the girls found out that I had been in an Irish play in high school and had to learn an accent, so we thought it would be funny to pretend that I was their Irish friend, Molly Malone, when we went to the pub. The first person I tried my accent out on immediately asked if I was American. Dropping my ruse, I said yes; he said he could tell because my accent wasn't that great. Fail. Oh well, at least the judges weren't Irish!

The next day we got up early to catch a bus tour that went up the northern coast of Ireland. We got to go inside the Malahide Castle, where the same family had lived there since the eleventh century! Oliver Cromwell even stationed his troops there at one point. It was so beautiful! Each generation had added its own touch to the castle, so some rooms were more modernized (in Europe, "modern" means post-fifteenth century). It was cool to see a real Irish castle! The only unfortunate thing was the weather...it was cold and pouring down rain the whole time we were there! So we didn't really get a chance to see much of the coast. But it was still worth it! After that, we decided to hit up Trinity College, which is basically where anyone who is anyone in Ireland goes to school. James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Alfred Tennyson, Francis Bacon, and a bunch of other famous people went there. It's also the home of the Book of Kells, which I'm pretty sure is the oldest surviving copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Trinity College also has a bookstore that sells extremely warm and moderately priced sweatshirts to poor American tourists who were ill-prepared for the traditional Irish weather...haha! Unfortunately, we couldn't get in to see the Book of Kells because of long lines to the ticket counter. We had a few other things we wanted to do, so the majority of the group decided to skip it (unfortunately I was in the minority, but I definitely wanted to see other things in Dublin as well).

After that, we walked to Christ's Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was cool for me because a) I love going through cathedrals and b) I got to see Jonathan Swift's grave! Being the literary/political dork that I am, Jonathan Swift is one of my idols, due to the fact that he was one of the lone voices to speak out against the injustices the British committed against the Irish. He single-handedly stopped Parliament from inflating the Irish currency for England's benefit by simply writing anonymous letters to newspapers and legislators. He was amazing. So yeah, I basically loved that.

That night, we decided to find a relatively cheap place to eat that was close to Temple Bar, and we stumbled upon the most American restaurant I have ever been to in my life. We walked in and there were American flags and signs for American baseball teams all over. They even had (gasp!) "American hamburgers" on the menu! It was nice to have a taste of home. We decided to go back to Oliver St. John Gogarty's again that night to hear some more Irish music, which was amazing! Because our flight back to Italy left really early the next morning (we had to be at the airport at 5:30! yuck!), we decided not to book a hostel for Saturday night, thinking that we could stay out all night and be fine. False. We stayed at the pub until 2ish, and then we decided to just head over to the airport and sleep there until our flight. Again, false. We didn't take into account the fact that apparently the Irish airport staff don't believe in central heat. The airport was so cold that no one could sleep, and of course no one could sleep on the plane. Then, we had to wait at the train station for a while because the normal trains weren't running on Sundays. By the time we got back to Verona, we had been up for 40 straight hours! Not a great idea. We were planning on doing the same thing for Barcelona this weekend...needless to say as soon as we got home we booked a third night there.

As I was expecting, I was so sad to leave Dublin. I have always felt such a connection to Irish history and culture because of my ancestry, and the fact that I think it's so cool. I felt so at home in Ireland. The locals are so friendly, and life is so much more relaxed there. Dublin is the perfect combination of an Americanized city with a European feel. In the States, people in big cities are always rushing to get from place to place, not even looking at anything else that is outside their destination. People in Dublin would just talk to you on the street, and everyone we asked for directions or anything else was so friendly, and they would joke around with you even though they didn't know you at all. Obviously Irish people love to drink, so there were cool little pubs all over town where you could meet people and enjoy a good bowl of stew. Also, they love Americans, which was a bit different from other places we've been (Italians are surpisingly snobby!). Almost everyone we talked to had either been to the States or really liked the States, especially Bill Clinton! Apparently Clinton had a lot to do with settling the bitter disputes between Ireland and Northern Ireland, so they feel really indebted to him. But anyway, I could definitely see myself living in Ireland someday. Next time I go, I definitely want to see the Book of Kells and do some traveling outside of Dublin to see the picturesque Irish countryside. One thing I definitely miss is the music - I've always loved the Irish fiddle music, but it was just so cool to see all the locals getting into the music and singing/dancing to it. It was such a cool experience!

Next weekend we're going to Barcelona, Spain. I've had such a great time in Salzburg and Dublin, I don't know how next weekend can top it! It's definitely going to be a different kind of experience, but I'm really excited about it!

Last night, a bunch of us got to go to see The Killers at the arena in downtown Verona. And by arena I mean coliseum that was built in 76 AD. It was so cool - we sat down on the old stone seats, watched The Killers perform AMAZINGLY (hearing everyone, Italian and American, singing "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" was absolutely epic), and look at the beautiful full moon over the stage while a cool breeze cooled us off. It was so surreal; I really felt like I was living someone else's life! One girl actually got to meet the band and go on the tour bus. Guess I should have been sitting with her...but yeah, everyone agreed that the concert experience was definitely worth the 40 euros.

Well, I guess I must go - got to get up at 7am for class! Hope you guys are doing well Stateside!